Commentary : Let Human Rights Commission investigate violation of human rights under the guise of FIR

Human rights are to be protected in real term in real life. This must mean at the least that police will not arrest only for the reason that someone has filed an FIR. Because  FIR is just first information about an alleged crime. The law does not allow the police to treat an FIR as arrest warrant issued by the court. A court warrant creates an obligation for the police to arrest an accused. The law does not create any urgency to arrest anybody on the basis of FIR. Police investigation is possible without arresting the person. But they  fall the easy way.

The police must investigate and satisfy themselves independently about the existence of a case against the accused named before arresting him.

It is not surprising that the people feel insecure about their personal freedom as soon as, rightly or wrongly though most of the time wrongly, someone lodges an FIR with the police. The person or persons named in the FIR will rush to court with the prayer for bail. The court then also relying on the FIR decides whether the bail should be allowed or not. At this stage an accused is most helpless, whatever he has to say the court cannot take into consideration. The court also do not in most cases try to know what the police has found outside the FIR for justifying his arrest. There are highest court’s decisions that the police through its investigation must produce a report to be sent to the court along with the arrested person justifying their reasonable belief about the allegations brought about against the person. Most of the time the court is satisfied with simple statement from the police that important evidence is coming and the matter is under investigation. Thus an FIR of a private individual making all sorts of criminal allegations can easily send a person to jail. Thus constitutional protection of human or fundamental rights such as personal liberty, right to move freely or right to do business and job mean nothing in practice. The human rights bodies simply love to talk about human rights and do not like to know what is happening in reality. [Read More]

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Source: The New Nation - Independent Daily